Never Forget, Never Regret
by Sayaka
Summary: Fred and George find themselves responsible for a muggle with no memory of herself during the Christmas season. It's bad enough Dolohov's after them, how will they keep Ariona from the Deatheaters?


**Author Note: **This story is to indulge in my own obsession over the Weasley twins. I LOVE getting reviews and I'll even ask my readers from time to time what they think should happen next. Please give me some feedback on these first chapters. This first one is going to be a little shorter than what I usually hope to write.**  
Disclaimer: **The twins and other HP trademarked characters belong to Rowling. However, all original characters belong to me.

"No. I didn't finish it yet, Bekka. And I will not let you copy it. It isn't due for another three weeks. Why can't you just enjoy our Christmas break and let it be?"

The bus came to a slow halt at the end of the street and Ariona Hanely clambered off and stepped into a flurry of snow. With a clatter, the door shut behind her and the bus turned the corner with it's remaining passengers.

"Look. Make yourself a cup of tea or something. Watch MI-5 re-runs. I have some shopping to do, and I can't talk on the phone forever." Ariona stopped and peered through a grimy window into a shop before moving on. "Yes, I'll see you in Wales after Christmas. Bye, Beks."

Packing her phone away in her bag, the young American shuffled through the crowd that was hurriedly doing their Christmas shopping. London was always hustling and bustling as Ariona had discovered when she had transferred to England for two semesters, but the holidays always showed the worst side of a busy city. Keeping a hand on her knit hat and scarf, she sidled sideways between two business men. Just ahead was a variety store she had visited with her roommate Bekka earlier in the fall. Bekka had pointed out a vintage tea set she had practically drooled over and Ariona finally had a chance to purchase it without her roommate being present.

A brass bell tinkled as she opened the door and was enveloped with huge wave of heat. The store was quiet; the elderly lady who ran the store with her husband was snoozing in a chair behind the counter. Ariona pulled her hat off and made her way through the aisles of stuff that was piled all over the small shop. Over in the corner, a pair of red-headed twins were inspecting an old video-player. As Ariona approached, she overheard them talking.

"Yeah, Dad'll be chuffed with this, I expect. It'll go great with the television we bought for his birthday." said one the twins, giving the plug-cord an experimental tug.

"Oy, George, reckon Mum would like this?" One of the twins turned to hold up the china pot from the tea set Bekka adored.

"Oh, please, not that one!" Ariona exclaimed, speeding up her steps a bit.

They both turned together in surprise to stare at her, and she felt heat in her face that had nothing to do with the warmth of the room.

"A friend admired that set last time we passed here, and I was hoping to buy it for her, as a Christmas present." she explained in a rush, embarrassed that she had spoken so suddenly.

The red-head holding the video-player exchanged a grin with his twin. "Looks like we were beaten to it, Fred. I reckon we can get Mum a self-simmering caul- crockpot from Dervish and Banges."

"It's yours." laughed the other, setting the pot down and stepping aside so Ariona could have room to pick up the tray.

"Thank you so much!" she said with a delighted smile. Grabbing the handles of the tray tightly with her gloved hands she picked it up. "That's so nice of you, really."

"It must be the holiday air getting to us."

She joined them as they went up to the counter to make their purchase and insisted that they go ahead of her in exchange for their generosity concerning the tea set. The little old lady stirred from her slumber and began ringing up the video-player on an ancient cash register. Ariona waited patiently with Bekka's tea set, watching shoppers drift by the frosty windows. Another shopper, who wore a large balaclava as protection from the cold, entered the variety store and looked around the shop and finally spotting the foursome crowded around the counter.

The owner was explaining how to operate the video-player with the twins and had missed her new costumer. Ariona watched him curiously, starting as he pulled something out from beneath his coat and pointed it towards the counter. The thought "gun" flashed through her head. Dropping the tray with a loud crash of breaking china, she yanked the ends of twins' coats and toppled backwards into a shelf-full of books.

A bead of red light exploded into the side of the video-player, sending it flying upwards in pieces. Sparks and metal showered down on the store, and Ariona looked up just in time to see the poor old woman faint behind her counter. She was shoved hastily aside behind the fallen bookcase, two more beads of red light hitting where they had been dog-piled on the floor a moment before. One of the twins cursed and Ariona saw him pulled a long stick of wood out of his coat.

"It's Dolohov!" the other shouted, ducking, a stick in his own hand.

"He's after_ you_?" she shouted before she was forcibly pushed towards the floor, under cover.

A twin aimed his stick over the top of the bookcase and a funnel of grey smoke unfurled like a tornado towards their attacker. The air became thicker, smoky, and harder to breathe in. Ariona crawled away and crouched behind another aisles of vases, her hands clutched over her head.

_  
Oh, my God... Oh, my God... I'm dead, _we're _dead..._

"In front of bloody muggles!" exclaimed one of the red-heads.

"Cassandra should have Seen this!" the other one said bitterly.

Another flash of light, this time a brilliant green that demolished a vase overhead of Ariona. She uttered a small scream as sharp bits of pottery showered over her. A small conical object went whizzing silently past her towards the next aisle.

"Come out, blood-traitors!" the man in the balaclava shouted, his voice deep and full of loathing. "It's service to the Dark Lord or death!"

A ear-splitting noise erupted from another corner of the shop, and the attacker turned his head. Just as he did so, one of the twins stood and shot a red light from his own stick. The man realized his dangerous mistake and turned, shouting an odd language, just as he caught the beam directly in the chest. His stick went flying just as another flash of red light erupted from the tip. Dolohov flew backwards and hit the wall by the door spread-eagled, cracking his head and sliding limply to the floor. The red light hit the table Ariona was crouching under with tremendous force, blowing it and Ariona into the next aisle over. She felt a hard corner slam into her skull before everything went black.  
**  
**

"She'll be alright as rain, but she needs to wake of her own accord. You may visit as soon she's awake and only after my Healers have seen to her."

"No, I am truly sorry, but she is still out cold. _Please,_ stop harassing my staff before I have to inform the Magical Law Enforcement squad."

"Miss Hanely? Miss, are you awake?"

Her eyelids felt as heavy as bricks, but Ariona finally pulled them apart to look into the face of a middle-aged woman with rectangular spectacles. She blinked against the brightness of the white room and flinched.

"Miss Hanely?" the woman inquired again.

"I'm awake." she whispered scratchily. Her throat felt dry, like paper, and the woman immediately assisted her in drinking what was a gobletful of what tasted like lemon-water. Finished, Ariona laid her head back against a very soft and comfortable pillow.

"You took a long time in wakening up, dear. You gave some of the Healers a terrible fright for awhile." the woman informed her, placing the empty goblet on a table next to a vase full of yellow flowers. She flicked a stick in the direction of the windows. The curtains flew apart of their own accord, letting a stream of weak sunlight into the room.

"Er..."

The woman was dressed in what appeared to be lounging robes, dyed in a soft green embroidered with an emblem Ariona didn't recognize. Smiling at her patient, the woman toddled around the room to the side of the bed. "Healer Ofner will be by in a while to check on you. You'll be cleared, memory modified, and sent home, none the wiser." she said merrily.

"Memory... home... Where am I?" Ariona asked, her mind feeling very murky and a throbbing beginning in her left temple.

"St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries."

"St. Mungo- wait, magic?"

She struggled to sit up in bed, but a firm hand on her chest kept her lying down underneath her blankets. Her nurse looked over the top of her glasses into her face, examining Ariona's eyes and the side of her head.

"Does your head still hurt, dear?" she asked severely, pursing her lips together in a motherish way. "I'll go get you a potion for that."

"Erm, yes, but-" Ariona grabbed ahold of the woman's wrist before she could leave the room. "Potion? What's going on? The twins, the woman-"

"Are all in one piece and perfectly healthy."

Ariona watched the woman walk around the bed and wiggle a stick at the cabinet beside her bed. She watched as a gold goblet solidified in front of her eyes and a watery green liquid emerge from the tip of the-

"Did you say magic?" she asked incrediously.

"Yes. This is a hospital for those injured in magical accidents. Your's wasn't exactly magical, but we felt we'd make sure you took no lasting magical damage that may have been missed." the nurse told her cheerily.

Ariona stared. "Why haven't I heard about magical hospitals, let alone _magic_, before this?"

"Well, muggles aren't supposed to know about magic. It's part of magical law."

"Muggles?"

The witch smiled at her and carried over the goblet. "Non-magical people. Drink that up, darling."

"Then why-"

"Am I telling you all of this? As soon as you're cleared by the Healer, we wipe your memory magically. Drink it, please, Miss Hanely!" Ariona flushed and took a sip from the goblet."Yes, there's alot you can do with magic. But don't ask too many questions right now. You really shouldn't over exert yourself mentally; you only just woke up. Really... dear..."

They both turned their heads in surprise as the door to the room opened and revealed another middle-aged Healer, this time male, who strode into the room with a scroll and a quill floating behind him.

"How are we feeling today, Miss Hanely?" he asked genially. Ariona was staring open-mouthed at the quill that had poised itself over the paper, scribbling away. Healer Ofner tilted his head and inquired again. "Miss Hanely?"

She tore her eyes away from quill and said, "Who?"

"You are Miss Ariona Hanely of the University of London, an exchange student from the United States?" he questioned her, his eyes narrowing.

"I... I don't know. I, oh, my God, I can't remember. I remember Ariona, but I don't remember anything else..." she stuttered, panic stricken. She did not recognize the last name or that she was a student. Ariona strained her mind to remember anything beyond the man who had attacked the red-headed twins in the variety store, but everything was unnervingly blank. Ariona barely noticed that her nails dug into the woman's wrist as her anxiety level skyrocketed.

The nurse and Healer Ofner exchanged startled and horrified glances. Behind the Healer, the quill was zooming across the parchment.

"Nothing... at all?" he asked, walking over and examining her as the nurse had done.

"Nothing!" she whispered, terrified. Ink was now flying out of the quill and onto the marble floor.

"It's probably a case of amnesia. She did take a blow to the head."

Ariona looked at her two caretakers imploringly. "You can fix that right? You don't have a potion for amnesia? Magic, of any sort?"

The woman smiled sadly down at her and patted her hand consolingly. "No, deary."  
She lowered her head into the pillow that was no longer as comforting as it had been only minutes before-hand. The white ceiling above her was as blank as her memory. The door shut behind her as Healer Ofner and his assistant hurried away, whispering hurriedly, the scrolling and quill floating away in their wake.

Later that evening, Ariona was sitting up, propped against her entourage of four or five pillows. She was watching the daffodils in the vase on her cabinet. During her frantic search for any memory, she had been quite sure she had heard the yellow flowers _honk_ at her. After watching them for an hour, she had yet to catch a single daffodils honk, or even squeak. However, she did fancy that one of the daffodils had turned it's petals towards her as though looking to see if she was watching until hurriedly going back into its original position.

The door opened, and the nurse, whom she now knew was Healer Meriwether, poked her head in with a smile.

"Are you up for a pair of visitors, deary? I have two very handsome gentleman here who are threatening every Healer on our staff to visit you." she announced.

She nodded, and the twins ran Healer Meriwether over as they clambered through the doorway. They stood before her, smiling somewhat guiltily at her.

"We feel really bad about your memory-" said of the twins, who was holding a wrapped box.

"-because it's almost our fault-"

"-since we were the target-"

"-but you got hit-"

"-because you may have saved us a lot of trouble-"

"-and we wanted drop by and say thanks-"

"-and hope you like the daffodils." the first finally finished.

She blinked and grinned, despite feeling down. "Do they honk?"

"Yep." said the other twin.

"Thank goodness. I thought I had more damage to my head than just my memory." she admitted, trying to lighten their guilty conscience. "And they're lovely. Daffodils are my favorite."

"Oh, brilliant, then."

They shifted their weight from foot to foot, still looking very uncomfortable with the whole situation.

"Please, sit down-" Ariona cut herself off, realizing there were no chairs for visitors.

With a very slow turning of his wand, one of the twins created two plush chairs out of thin air. They each sat in one and looked over at her.

"As you probably figured out now, er, we're wizards. My name is Fred Weasley, and this is my brother George." introduced Fred, waving a hand towards his brother.

"Quick thinking, that, grabbing our coats and pulling us out of the way."

"Oh, I suppose..."

George looked down at the box on his lap and the back up at the hospital bed. "I don't know if you remember, probably not, but you dropped a tray of china before you grabbed our coats..."

"You had told us you were buying it for a friend. When everything was cleaned, we went back and bought the broken pieces and fixed it up for you." Fred said.

She didn't remember the china. Inside of the box was a beautifully ornate tea set, nestled among a couple of handkerchiefs Fred and George had used as a replacement to bubble wrap. Each cup was perfectly whole and there wasn't even a single chip in the paint. Ariona hesitated and picked up the pot with careful hands and stared at it.

"You shouldn't have." she whispered. Now she was the one who felt guilty. They hadn't had to buy it for her, especially when she didn't remember even wanting it.

"It's simple charm, beginner, in fact." said Fred.

"No, I meant-"

George set the rest of the china cups and the tray alongside the honking daffodils. "It's a thank you gift. You don't know how dangerous that man was."

"Why did he attack you?" she asked. It was hard to comprehend that she had really done them a service that had rendered this much thanks.

They exchanged a glance very similar to the one that had passed between Healer Ofner and Healer Meriwether earlier that afternoon. She looked between the two of them, studying the questions they were asking silently with their brown eyes.

"I suppose..." hesitated George.

"Can't hurt, could it?" wondered Fred.

"_What?_" insisted Ariona, suddenly very intent on knowing what had landed her in a magical hospital with no memory.

Fred opened his mouth just as the door opened for a second time that evening. Healer Meriwether bustled in and smiled delightedly at the twins.

"Oh, you're still here. I hate to shoo you away, but visiting hours are over." she announced, her eyes twinkling in the direction of Ariona.

"No! They can't go. They have to tell-" Ariona began, but the twins were already standing and the chairs had dissolved away into nothingness.

George gave her a little nod. "We'll drop on by tomorrow." After a suspicious glance on her part, he added, "Cross my heart and break my wand."

They winked at Healer Meriwether and called out goodbyes as they left through the door. The room seemed very empty and lonely as the nurse fluffed Ariona's pillows and chatted away, "Such nice boys, coming to visit a pretty girl like you."


End file.
